A glaze is a transparent and subtle color application. Glazing in acrylic is best accomplished by using a slow drying medium. You can make your own slow drying medium by adding an acrylic additive called retarder to any regular acrylic gloss medium. Add up to 15% retarder to the medium. You can also use Golden’s [...]
A glaze can be considered a delicate layer of color. Delicate because it is so subtle and transparent. Therefore, a glaze is best used on top of a stronger base color. A common Old Master’s Technique used a grisaille, meaning grays, which is an underpainting composed of dark and light paint colors using combinations of [...]
Glazing is a technique commonly used in many mediums such as oil and acrylic to create transparent layers of color. Since acrylic can be used thickly with no cracking or adhesion problems, it also has the benefit of offering some more unusual painting applications. By using a thick acrylic gel, and adding this into [...]
Using contrasts or opposites is an important painting tool. Pairing warm with cool colors, or hard edges with soft, or simple spaces with complex ones, adds intrigue, focus and power to the image. Since I like to use glazes and transparent layering in my work, an essential contrasting technique then, is the use of opaque [...]
Perhaps you have noticed that as your acrylic painting dries, the colors change. They get darker. Actually what is happening is the acrylic paint appears lighter while it is wet. All paints are made of two basic components, pigment (which looks like colored dirt before it is used in the paint) and binder, which holds [...]
I often get emails asking about the differences between Gels, Mediums and Pastes. First, it helps to understand a general principle behind all paint and painting products. All colored paints are made with basically two components: pigment – for color, and binder (also called medium, vehicle, and in the case of acrylic paints – polymer) [...]
I often get asked the same type of question regarding acrylic paint, whether to use mediums or water, and how much of each. A good way to think about acrylic is to organize all the techniques into two categories. Almost all techniques deal with acrylic sitting on TOP of the surface, or sinking DOWN [...]
On a recent outdoor painting trip I decided to try out the new slow drying acrylics from Golden called Open Acrylics. Usually I use oil pastels when working outdoors for portability and ease. However, I was surprised to find painting with these new acrylics even easier and much more fun! I spent time preparing and [...]
Art Tips and Tricks Air 6×6 sold This little painting blends surface treatments and transfers to give you lots of texture and depth. The lower portion background is a pumice gel tinted with Dioxazine purple and aluminum paint. When this was dry I used a stencil and applied crackle paste with a palette knife. The [...]
I get a lot of requests for tips to pour acrylic. To get a very smooth glossy finish, pouring acrylic mediums is a great way to accomplish that “surfboard finish”. Pours are also cool ways to get smooth evenly applied glazes or transparently colored overlays. My favorite pouring mediums are (these are all Golden [...]
I recently received an inquiry on how to keep bubbles out of that last acrylic varnish layer or finishing coat. I thought other folks might be interested in my answer: (by the way, the title of this article is from my favorite Shakespeare play – does it ring a bell for anyone?) Acrylic has a [...]
A recent inquiry came to me regarding the archival nature of commercial papers and other additions of non-fine art products added into paintings. There is something you can do to reduce the fading of printed papers. Golden has two products which both have UV protection, and are made especially to help increase the longevity [...]
A recent inquiry regarding gold leaf and acrylic paint was just posed to me, so I thought I would share the question and my response for anyone else using this cool combo. By the way, my book “Acrylic Revolution” has a full step-by-step of this technique, but my response here adds a few hints. Question: [...]
So what is this “radiant palette” all about? I received an inquiry recently asking about this term, used by Thomas Kinkade and other artists, referring to luminous colors, and an increase in middle tones that shift in light. In my opinion, there are two ways to get this effect. First, lay out your palette so [...]
How do you get that surfboard finish so popular on paintings? You know, that super clear, glossy, smooth top coat. The best results can be obtained using commercial resins. They come in two parts – a resin and hardener. They are, however, very toxic to work with. I prefer to use acrylic non-toxic fine artist [...]
There seems to be a myth that you aren’t supposed to use water with acrylic, and then there’s another one that you should always use water. This issue about water was something that really intrigued me when I first starting using acrylic paints. I address this issue in my book, Acrylic Revolution. The [...]
Cathy Carey cathy@artstudiosandiego.com When I am under time constraints, I like to under paint a few layers in acrylic to save some drying time. Then I finish the last few layers in oil. You can paint oil over acrylic, but not acrylic over oil, it would peel. Most canvases are prepared with gesso that [...]
Often artists will create a drawing or sketch on paper, and then want to adhere it to a stretched canvas to create a stronger support, or continue adding subsequent layers of paint. Here below is a method I learned from painter/instructor David True, who taught a workshop I attended years ago at Anderson Ranch. [...]
I like to paint a color underneath that will show through and be a contrast to the top color. I find this gives a more complex look to my layers. Some of the contrasts you can try: contrasts of temperature; warm and cool, contrasts of value; light and dark, contrasts of saturation; dull versus brilliant, [...]
There are two ways to apply a transparent layer of acrylic color: decreasing the power of the color by using water or by using medium. The first way, using water, is accomplished with a “wash” or “stain” made by using a mixture of water to colored paint in a ratio of about 8:2 (this isn’t an [...]
The Future 8×8 framed This is painting began with a direct transfer. I originally used transparencies to transfer onto book pages. From this original, I made a laser copy and did a direct transfer onto the panel with GAC 700. I put an isolation layer on and then used gels, mediums and paints to complete [...]
This is a detail from the painting Garden Glow-Dawn. There are three paintings in this series and I recently made changes to this one to bring more light into the triptych. The plexiglas panel fits flush with the wood panel surface. It has gold leaf on the back and acrylic mediums on the front. The petal shapes were made from an acrylic medium and each was painted with different glazes. This painting has been built up with over 20 layers of paint and isolation layers.
